16 September 2024
Dear parents and families,
We have been back at school for just over a week now and are extremely proud and impressed with the positive attitude and enthusiasm shown by our students on their return from the summer break. We particularly welcome our new students in Year 7 and Year 12, who have settled so well.
In this letter:
Staffing updates
Premises update
Uniform and expectations
Attendance updates
Key dates
Staffing Update
At the end of last term, we said goodbye and good luck to a number of staff leavers: Mr Whitehead, Mr Cammish, Mrs Govier, Mr Bament, Mrs DeHollander and Mr Lowndes left us to move on to new adventures and new schools. This term, we are welcoming:
Ms McLelland – English teacher
Ms Angus – Science teacher
Mr Rybak – Maths teacher
Mr Ladd – PE teacher
Ms Ogilvie – SEND teacher
Ms Vickery – Humanities teacher
Ms Dodd – Deputy Head of Maths
We have had some re-organisation of tutors for the start of this year, to bring in our new staff members. We have circulated via email a full list of the tutor groups with their tutor/s.
Premises Update
We have a considerable programme of works to upgrade our buildings and premises over the coming year. Currently, the roof of A block is being replaced and therefore we have an amount of scaffolding in place at the front of school. We expect this work to be completed and the scaffolding removed in the next two weeks.
The work to replace our all-terrain pitch (ATP) begins at the end of September. This is a large-scale project and an amount of disruption to the normal running of the school is unavoidable. From Monday 30 September, for one week, we expect the car park between the Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre and the SPACE sixth-form centre to be inaccessible. During this period, the removal of all 350 tonnes of the sand base under our existing ATP will be removed on lorries. Whilst our contractors will do all they can to minimise movement at the beginning and end of the school day, this may not always be possible. You may find it more straightforward to drop-off and pick-up your child away from the school car park at that time. Thank you for your patience. We are, obviously, extremely excited about the prospect of a brand new astro turf pitch, which we expect to be using in PE lessons after Christmas at the latest.
Uniform and Expectations
At the start of every term, and especially so at the start of a new school year, we talk to our children a lot about our expectations for their behaviour, effort and attitude. Staff reinforce these expectations with every class that they teach, so our students understand that they can expect a consistent response from all of their teachers. For your information, a copy of the resources we use has been shared with you via email. We appreciate your support in upholding these expectations with your children.
The overwhelming majority of children have returned with exemplary uniform, and we thank you for making sure your child has all the necessary items. However, we have noticed an increase in the tendency for children to ‘adjust’ their uniform on arrival at school. This is especially the case with school skirts rolled down at the waistband in order to radically shorten the length. If you find that your child has a ClassCharts negative point for uniform, despite them setting off from home properly dressed at the start of the day, skirt-rolling could be the cause. We appreciate your support in reminding your child that – if they choose to wear the school skirt – they must wear it unadjusted. If a child persistently refuses to wear the skirt correctly, they will be asked to change into school trousers instead.
Attendance Updates
We would like to remind all families that the statutory guidance for schools around school attendance has changed. We wrote to you before the summer break with a summary of those changes, and that letter is still available on our website. However, I wanted to draw your particular attention to the guidance around term time leave, since the end of the summer is often a time we want to start planning our next holidays. The
statutory guidance now says, “Generally, the DFE does not consider the need or desire for a holiday … to be an exceptional circumstance,” under which we could grant term time leave. Please do refer to the school’s website for our term dates, to be certain you are booking any getaways during school holiday time.
Key Dates
Coming up this term:
Thursday 12 September, 4:30 – 7:30pm, is our Open Evening for the families of children in year 6
Thursday 26 September, 4:00 – 7:00pm, is tutor evening for Years 7, 8 and 10
Thursday 10 October, 4:00 – 7:00pm is a Subject Evening for Year 11
The school is closed to students on Thursday 24 October, for our CLF Autumn Conference
The school is closed to students on Friday 25 October, for an Inset staff training day
We will be in touch again with any messages that are specific to a year group or House group. Please do also check the ‘News Stories’ section of our website, as well as our Facebook page, for further updates and good news.
With thanks for your continuing support, as always.
Yours faithfully,
Mrs H Jones
Principal
